Civic Innovation Lab funds $90,000 to 3 new projects

I often speak of the Civic Innovation Lab, which fuels innovation by providing grants and mentorship to individuals with ideas for improving Greater Cleveland. The Lab is a great organization with a great team of staff and mentors. Recently, they awarded grants to entrepreneurs shepherding three promising projects:

1) Jodi Marchewitz, iGuiders.com, $30,000. iGuiders.com will act as an online mentor to Greater Cleveland entrepreneurs and small business owners by walking users through logic-based decision trees to determine exact business needs. It will also provide useful, task-related search results and local resources. Marchewitz will use her Lab grant to complete a prototype by June. Her Lab mentors are Tim Mueller, president of Phylogy, and Charlene Hyle, president of Collaborate2Win.

2) Eddy Eckart and Tom Dillon, Sustainable Community Housing Assistance (SCHA), $30,000. SCHA will work with groups representing civil servants and others to create a sustainable investment vehicle that would provide funds for housing down payment assistance. Grants will be made available to participating groups' members to purchase homes in Cleveland and its inner-ring suburbs. Eckart and Dillon will be assisted by Lab mentor Ari Maron, a partner of MRN Ltd.

3) Lizalyn Smith and Mark Sorrells, NSBE Jr., $30,000. Affiliated with the National Society of Black Engineers and led locally by Smith and Sorrells, aerospace engineers at NASA Glenn Research Center, NSBE Jr. introduces high school students to various engineering disciplines and prepares them to enter engineering colleges by pairing them with black engineers who can serve as mentors. Mentors provide students with hands-on project experience, and students have opportunities to participate in engineering internships and develop skills by leading projects and meetings. NSBE Jr. will use its Lab grant to create a strategic plan to increase the number of students, mentors and collaborating corporations involved with the program; to create a sustainable and effective curriculum; and to establish connections with key local colleges. Smith and Sorrells will be assisted by Lab mentors Jon Adams, president of Noom Enterprises, and Alton Tinker, vice president and underwriting officer, Key Bank.

Jennifer Thomas, the Lab's director, said these new initiatives are excellent examples of ways the Lab promotes innovation.

"Jodi and Eddy are building their initiatives from the concept stage and will have the opportunity to create new economic development tools with a great team of mentors,"

Thomas said.

"Lizalyn and Mark plan to build a program that can change the lives of inner city teens.

"These three efforts will help forge stronger communities and a strong economy in Greater Cleveland."

Civic Innovation Lab, a project funded by the Cleveland Foundation, fuels innovation by providing mentorship, training and funding of up to $30,000 for ideas that have a measurable economic impact on the Greater Cleveland community. Since its launch, in September 2003, the Civic Innovation Lab has provided more than $1 million in grants to 37 initiatives and trained more than 500 entrepreneurs. For more information on Civic Innovation Lab, please visit www.civicinnovationlab.org.

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